IWM Blog

  • From the cockpit of a Heinkel He 111. Image from Der Führer, 9/1/1941
    Blog: Second World War

    German War Reporters and the London Blitz

    Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, 4 December 2020
    During the Second World War, the German Propagandakompanie (Propaganda Troops) was a branch of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. Its function was to produce and disseminate propaganda material, both for the fighting troops and the civilian population. These companies were the only news-reporting units in areas of military operation, as civilian news correspondents were not permitted to enter combat zones. They functioned both as soldiers and as reporters, writing from the front for the radio and newspapers. In the Luftwaffe, the PK reporters often flew together with the crew on missions and air raids.
  • © IWM MAU 726, Home Guards man a Bren gun whilst on patrol in dense forest.
    Blog

    Between Mau Mau and Home Guard: Intertwining voices from the Mau Mau Uprising in IWM’s archive

    Niels Boender, 30 November 2020
    In the bowels of the Imperial War Museum, or to be specific in a climate-controlled warehouse in Cambridgeshire, one can find a wealth of private papers. Among these are a few dozen typescript pages of storytelling, narrating thirteen months of conflict in colonial Kenya. Sources considering late-colonial wars still overwhelmingly originate from white administrators, but as this article will show, there are items in IWM’s collections that allow for intertwining narratives and a more perceptive understanding of such insurgencies.
  • Who do I think I was?
    Blog: First World War

    Mapping the Centenary – Project Case Studies (Part Four)

    Dr James Wallis, 30 November 2020
    We hear from the Creative Director of ‘Celf ar y Blaen/Head4Arts’ for our next project, an organisation that led on various projects in the South East Wales Valleys region, including ‘Who Do I Think I Was?’
  • Nissen Hut
    Blog

    14-18 NOW Project Spotlight: Forestry Commission

    Rachel Whiteread, 27 November 2020
    There is no better place in which the word ‘legacy’ can take a stronger meaning than in the planting of forests. In the depths of Yorkshire’s Dalby Forest lies Forestry Commission’s and Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture, Nissen Hut, which was presented in 2018 as part of the 14-18 NOW programme. Nissen Hut connects forests with the legacy of the First World War.
  • IWM’s reading room. The room is full of long white desks with swivel chairs. Running along one wall are shelves full of reference books for consultation.
    © IWM
    Blog

    Exploring Berlin as a Cold War City in IWM’s Research Room

    Annabel Sheen, 12 November 2020
    As a second year Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) PhD student at Imperial War Museums and the University of Bristol, I now have extensive experience using the museum’s Research Room and accessing its expansive archive. I am fortunate that my supervisor Sarah Paterson works in the Library, and the staff there are both knowledgeable about the archive’s content and very helpful.
  • Digital Media Comparison
    Blog: Cold War

    Digital Futures: How to preserve our most vulnerable digital media

    Annabell Sheen, 5 November 2020
    In 2020, IWM initiated Digital Futures, a five year project to digitise 1.8 million films, photographs and sound recordings and improve the storage and slow down the degradation of 6.8 million items by freezing, isolating or refrigerating them. This mass preservation project is digitising some of our most vulnerable media from the Cold War era.
  • Blog

    And Their Name Liveth for Evermore - Researching your Local War Memorial

    Heather Needham, 30 October 2020
    War memorials can be researched from various angles: military, social, and family history, and also as artistic objects. The memorials can take the form of the traditional cross in the churchyard or town square, a commemorative plaque or window, or a more practical memorial, and Andover has examples of all of these.
  • Image of We Are Poppy project, courtesy of Lotti Terry
    Blog: First World War

    We Are Poppy

    Tayler Cresswell, 29 October 2020
    One hundred years ago, in November 1920, thousands of women wrote letters to the government asking to be part of the ceremony at Westminster Abbey on 11 November. They were convinced that the Unknown Warrior being buried there that day was their son. This was just one of the stories our young team unearthed in our quest to find out how the Great War affected women’s mental health. We wanted to find out what has changed for women in the past 100 years and which challenges women still face today.
  • Illustration from film produced by Squeaky Pedal and FRWLx
    Blog: Second World War

    The Making of Our Stories, The Battle of Britain

    Jason Davidson, 29 October 2020
    The Battle of Britain is one of the most important events in the history of Britain. But understanding those who were there, who fought, suffered and endured, allows us not only to understand those events, but connect us directly to those ‘few’ who gave so much not only to the many, but to all future generations.
  • Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Northumberland, UK. 14.09.2016. Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Performance of 'Contagion'
    Blog

    14-18 NOW Project Spotlight: Contagion by Shobana Jeyasingh

    A.Thompson, 27 October 2020
    In 2018 as part of the 1418 NOW programme, Shobana Jeyasingh premiered their project ‘Contagion’ at the Gynamisum Gallery in Berwick-upon-Tweed and then toured across the UK. It explored the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, which killed more people than World War One. The performance explores the speed in which a virus can spread and its destructive nature to the body.
  • Ten Sandhurst officer cadets, pictured in 1915
    Copyright Dr Frances Hurd
    Blog: Personal Stories

    They also served - remembering obscure lives from the First World War

    Dr Frances Hurd, 20 October 2020
    The chance find of an evocative photograph launched me on a quest to trace the lives and deaths of ten men and their family before and after the war. Of these ten Sandhurst officer cadets, three won the Military Cross and one became a general. Incidentally, all my subjects volunteered during the first two weeks of September 1914. However, like thousands of other volunteers, some in this group became casualties before they made any contribution to the war. There were also those who for various reasons sought a way out. Here are some of their stories.
  • Blog: First World War

    Mapping the Centenary – Project Case Studies (Part Two)

    Dr James Wallis, 15 October 2020
    Our third Case Study project is ‘BAME Seafarers in the First World War’, which was coordinated by the University of Portsmouth.

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